Both sides were right in the recent columns on green energy (“Green energy transition: myth or reality?” Star-Advertiser, Insight, Oct. 14). Renewables like wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of electricity to build, deploy and use. And it is a basic law of neoliberal economics that as the price of something useful declines, more people will want to use more of it.

We absolutely need to stop using fossil fuels for energy; a livable planet depends on it. But, ensuring and sustaining a livable planet means we have to live within the natural systems we are a part of. Our modern products and modern lives are manufactured, transported and subsidized by massive inputs of energy.

Only when we embrace the abundance and diversity of what we have, rather than trying to capture and transform it to power our self-centered lives, will we escape the trap Bjorn Lomborg identified but is celebrated by green energy enthusiasts.

Travis Idol

President, Hawai‘i Interfaith Power and Light

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